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A new federal report recommends that schools emphasize building children's "self-regulation" skills in order to increase opportunities for student success in a number of areas. The recommendation is one of several in the report, the fourth in a series on self-regulation research and practice from the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Researchers have zeroed in on the importance of self-regulation skills, which allow children to manage their thoughts and feelings, control impulses, and problem-solve.
"Self-regulation affects wellbeing across the lifespan, from mental health and emotional wellbeing to academic achievement, physical health, and socioeconomic success," said Desiree Murray, associate director of research at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and lead author of the report. "Unfortunately, prolonged or pronounced stress and adversity, including poverty and trauma, can delay children's self-regulation development."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:52PM
I know all kids are different, so I don't judge parents (unless they're actually abusive) -- if some small amount of physical reinforcement helps with your kid, I can't judge.
But I do think that many parents (not all) resort to such measures out of frustration, often because they too aren't consistent or lack control in their own behaviors when it comes to discipline, and their kids can easily sense that.
I learned how NOT to discipline from my mother, who never spanked me or otherwise hit me (that I can recall), but who would get very worked up and start shouting to try to gain control over kids. But that seemed somewhat haphazard, and she'd make threats that were very inconsistently enforced -- "You won't get X EVER AGAIN!!" The result, of course, is that I realized this even as a young kid and even found it mildly amusing at times to see her get worked up. Not a recipe for discipline.
When my own kid came along, I resolved NEVER to raise my voice with him except deliberately. It's really hard sometimes as parents, because kids do ridiculous things, very frustrating things, creating huge messes, etc. But shouting at them arbitrarily out of your own frustration does NO good. I only ever raised my voice deliberately, generally to signal something that was actually dangerous for the kid. It was so unexpected for him and he was so shocked (and perhaps a bit frightened) when I did so, that often only one such warning was necessary for him to realize the severity of what he was doing.
In terms of spanking/physical reinforcement, I personally found the "time out" system to be perfectly adequate, without ever resorting to hitting. Kids are generally capable of "reason" of some sort by age 2 or so (at least in terms of consequences for bad actions), and at some point we introduced a "counting" system before the time out. And it is a sort of "physical" reinforcement in the sense that you have to move the kid, so it goes beyond verbal stuff.
The key, from my perspective, is just consistency, whatever your disciplinary method. If you say something will happen, you MUST follow through. And you have to find something suitably unpleasant -- for me, the "time out" was always done in such a way that it was unpleasant. The few times that it seemed like the kid was still laughing and not taking it seriously, we had ways to make the time out situation seem MORE unpleasant (removing stuffed animals that he found soothing, etc.). By the time the kid was 5, we almost never had to actually enforce a time-out anymore -- just threatening it or starting the count was plenty motivation.
And, particularly when young, there CANNOT be exceptions -- again, consistency. So many times it seems like parents just let things go because it's too inconvenient or disruptive or embarrassing to discipline -- you're at the grandparents, or at a friend's house, or out at a restaurant, or whatever, and you just "let it go" that time. Big mistake.
For my kid, if he acted out at a restaurant (and I'm not talking about running around the room or whatever -- I mean just started having a minor fit, making too much noise, etc.), it was a "time out" in the car. Out of the restaurant. Immediately. We started doing that even before he turned 2. Was that a pain to do? Yeah. Did it disrupt our dinner sometimes with friends, etc.? Yes. But by age 3 (and only a handful of such actions) he had figured it out, and we were able to take him to upscale fancy restaurants for meals lasting a couple of hours, and we'd get random complements from other restaurant guests about how they couldn't believe how well-behaved he was. (And compared to the common situation today where it seems many parents let their kids wander randomly around restaurants, playing games, pestering other people, making disruptive noise, etc., he certainly was an "angel.")
Again, I'm NOT saying such things will work for every kid. I just think being consistent, ALWAYS following through on whatever disciplinary penalties you threaten, and always remaining in control of your own emotions and frustration, will get you a long way with little kids. If kids sense that they can ever "get attention" or "get a rise" from you -- even yelling at them -- without sufficiently unpleasant consequences, they WILL take advantage of that.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:15PM
One last thing -- I should say that the "time out" for us was also a kind of "last resort." In most cases with younger kids, you often just need to "redirect" behavior, encouraging them to do something more positive, rather than continuing the negative behavior. Even a simple distraction can often be enough. When he became older and could understand, we'd threaten various consequences (losing privileges, etc.). It was only when those things didn't work -- or the kid was just out of control and needed a break to be removed from the situation -- that "time out" became the option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:54PM
Thank you for your posts.